Nikon offering a $700 rebate within weeks of my buying a D600 at full price followed by Nikon USA's insulting email correspondence and inaction afterward as I sought some recourse, has ended my 40 year love for Nikon and its cameras.

Gone is the D600 and shortly all of my Nikon gear (except for my 1960s Nikomat and 43-86mm zoom).

Enter the brave new world of the Sony A99. Wow.

So, good riddance Nikon -- this disrespected former customer will never buy or recommend one of your products ever again.

I think the M9-P dropped in price by more than double that amount, but only after some months of me buying it. So be it. I am no less happy with the camera. Either I was willing to pay the list price or I wasn't. I don't know the financial etiquette of price drops. Camera companies are in fierce competition, as evidences by you having a satisfactory alternative which is not even Canon. Nikon's marketing people told them they better drop the price. If the amount you paid was reasonable for what was on offer, I don't see why you would then ditch a whole system on the basis of this recent experience, unless you were planning to do so anyway. It was worth a try to see if you could get the rebate. Often there is a cut off. It might have been 30 days, for instance.

I'm like that, too. I am generally quite easy going, but when I'm slighted by a company, it becomes a lifetime ban. Enjoy the Sony. (While I only use rangefinders now, every now and then I wonder what I could do with camera like the A99.) Good luck!

Do you feel Nikon should rebate $700 to everyone that bought a camera before the offer? Where do you draw the line as to when people can claim a rebate? What would the grace period be. Seems like folks just before that grace period will be upset.

I would understand if you bought it in the time frame and they refused to honor it but weeks before.

This has happened to me before with canon but I accept that my timing was off which is no fault of canon. It happened last year with my M9 too. It's just the way life is.

I noticed that a Mamiya 50mm ULD dropped $25 about a week after I bought it from KEH. It was new and they had a few. I sent them a quick email and wasn't expecting much. But they surprised me and refunded the difference! Loyal customer gained.

Now, it's too bad that Nikon and Canon hadn't done their research as they both dropped some prices recently. I think the compact market took them by surprise. Sorry to here about Nikon's poor response. A partial refund would have been nice in your case as the rebate was considerable.

Face it guy's all these company's are the same it's all about money, so if you
purchased a camera when it first comes out and six month later or so they
drop the price it's not Nikon's or whoever fault. Sony might do the same thing
as well who know's, it's that amazing world of Digital!

Ouch. Take that Nikon!!
Sadly, I don't think they much care what we think anymore....

I don't think many companies care about us. They only care about our money. I've gone through some problems with apple too. I went throug a big fight with Honda motors over a safety recall that they recalled just enough to satisfy thevfederal gov. They stopped the recall just before my wife car vin number and her car had the faulty parts but they would not honor our claim. Until a large enough group of customers quit buying their products to have an impact on their bottom line they Will continue to abuse customers.

In this case I think Nikon was right. If you buy outside the dates its just tough luck. I don't think it would have been fair for others or good business to rebate to someone who bought weeks earlier. It's not like he bought at 11:59 pm the day before the price drop started.

My point is that early adopters were screwed. Dropping the price by ~25% within the first six months or so was an insult. It showed me that the camera was overpriced in the first place and I was gouged when I could be.

Having a $100 or $200 holiday rebate on the camera would have been reasonable (from my point of view) to spur sales -- but a drop of that much so soon after introduction is what I'm reacting to.

And, of course, after (too short) a period of time the value of anything digital dries up. That's a completely different situation.

I know that dealers across the country were outraged by this rebate. They may have sold some cameras, but overall, it was a customer relations nightmare for them. I count myself VERY FORTUNATE as I did get resolution (no thanks to Nikon USA) and I have moved on.

The flippant attitude of Nikon USA customer service only added to my ire.

It was basically a F**K YOU albeit polite and shrouded in customer support babble.

The instant discounting was pretty annoying, but what really pisses me off is that they shipped thousands of defective D600s and are now lying about it IN WRITING. I ended up returning two of them for the same ridiculous sensor contamination problem. I have no FF Nikon gear and I won't be buying any after this.

If I learned anything in the decade or so I worked at a camera store. It's that you never communicate problems like this directly with the company.
Be it Nikon, Sony, Canon, whoever. You fall back on the dealer, and we in turn would turn it over to our sales rep to do the dirty work.
Most of our reps gave us a couple week grace period when it came to rebates and warranty claims. A happy customer was in their best interest.
I can't remember ever having an issue like this that went unresolved.

This is but one reason I never buy a camera within its first year in the market. I prefer to allow the excitement of a new item to cool and let the market dictate the price of an item, rather than the manufacturer.

I didn't buy a M9-P until they were listed as discontinued. I wanted a M9 for several years, more so when the M9-P was announced.

The modern camera is not an investment...like all electronic goods, the price goes down, as time marches on. reality a memory card on my Pentax Optio a whole 64MB cost 6 times as a 4GB card, bought a few weeks ago! Should i storm their offices? My brand new Leica M3 ,1967. arrived with no rfdr! Sure 3 signatures on guarantee, at i guess a party bash.. Did i get another? No. Assembly finished in South Africa. It's still in service..
Get over it! i wait before buying any new model. Too many teething problems.

And it was my dealer that resolved this for me ultimately but did so without me directly asking them to. This particular dealer has been very good to me over the years and I felt that asking for anything special was out of line.

I mean, it wasn't the dealer's fault or idea to introduce this rebate. I certainly didn't blame them and, in the end, I didn't want them to get stuck with any loss and/or a camera they couldn't return.

My goal with Nikon USA, as fruitless as it might have been, was to insure that the camera could be returned with no dealer penalty. If not, I planned to keep it and deal with the loss when reselling it myself.

As I wrote before, it turned out well for me in the end -- but I wonder how many other D600 buyers weren't so fortunate.

I really don't see what the problem is. You chose to buy at the price you paid. It was just bad timing on your part. I doubt that your switching to Sony will affect anything other than you missing out on a great camera experience.
Anything that is relatively new in release is always going to be priced at a premium. Early adopters nearly always pay higher prices and it's not Nikons fault that someone decides to buy at the tail end of this cycle. Sorry.

I had good service from Fuji Australia, via my dealer. Being a Leica camera and Zeiss lens buyer from VanBar (only one of each) didn't hurt, but the store is great and keeps good relations with their reps, obviously.

I really don't see what the problem is. You chose to buy at the price you paid. It was just bad timing on your part. I doubt that your switching to Sony will affect anything other than you missing out on a great camera experience.
Anything that is relatively new in release is always going to be priced at a premium. Early adopters nearly always pay higher prices and it's not Nikons fault that someone decides to buy at the tail end of this cycle. Sorry.

Exactly. You want to be early, you pay more. You wait, you pay less. And sometimes there are special offers. So what is really the problem here? (except that modern camera bodies have a too short life).

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